Since January 2008, the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index surveys 1,000 Americans every day. LIVESCIENCE published today a list in The Well-Being of 50 U.S. States from a study of interviews with over 350,000 individuals. The results are valid for the period between January 2 and December 30, 2008.

 

Generalizations were also made in the study that well-being (or happiness) was highest in the Mountain and West Coast states, then the Eastern Seaboard followed by the Midwest and Southern states.

 

I first noticed Washington, D.C. was left out of the list. Then I recalled People, Planet&Profit - Location Matters where a U.S. map shows proportional natural hazard mortality. The FEMA regions, ten in total, are divided into four and colored from black to 'bright' through dark and light grey to distinguish severity in this U.S. natural hazard map. On average, mortality was highest in the Mountain states, followed by the Southern and Midwest states, then the Northwest, middle Eastern Seaboard, Northeast, and Southwest states, and California. However, Alaska and Hawaii were not shown as well as the U.S. territories, GUAM, PR, VI, CNMI, RMI, FSM, and American Samoa.

 

I wondered how happy the FEMA regions were in 2008.

55-aspetti di vita quotidiana, gioia,Taccuino Sanitatis, Cas.jpg

XIV century - Credit: Wikipedia


 

Surprise! Here is the list of FEMA regions in the order of well-being after my work with the numbers.


1. Black: (CO, MT, ND, SD, UT, WY)

2. Bright: (CT, MA, ME, NH, RI, VT) plus (NJ, NY) plus (AZ, CA,  HI, NV)

3. Dark Grey: (AL, FL, GA, KY, MS, NC, SC, TN) plus (AR, LA, NM, OK, TX)

4. Light Grey: (DE, MD, PA, VA, WV) plus (IL, IN, MI, MN, OH, WI) plus (IA, KS, MO, NE) plus (AK, ID, OR, WA)

 where each FEMA region I to X is inside a set of parentheses while DC, GUAM, PR, VI, CNMI, RMI, FSM, and American Samoa are not included.

In other words, the highest mortality region of the period from 1970 to 2004 has the highest well-being in 2008. The lowest well-being corresponds to the light-grey FEMA regions in the U.S. natural hazard map. The top and bottom well-being differ only 1.9% in this short list of FEMA regions combined for natural hazards. 

On the other hand, there was a difference of 13.1% in "happiness" from top to bottom of the "50 state" list. There must be more to this story than available now. The Gallup goes on!

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